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Hell is permanent separation from any and every comfort we have ever known. Every means we have ever accessed that would remove, soften, or alleviate pain and suffering will be removed from us. Every expression, whether human or divine, that would console us in our agony or desperation will disappear beyond all hope of ever returning. Even our ability to be numbed to continual torture, our ability to internally distance ourselves from endless pain by those internal mechanisms we call "scarring," will vanish.

All of these coping and comforting mechanisms are gifts of God. When we have chosen separation from the God of all comfort, we have chosen separation from His gifts of comfort as well.

All this is why I shake my head in sadness at statements like "We're gonna party in Hell!" It reminds me that what such a person sees as good things represented by the word "party" are really comforts and gifts from God (however inappropriately used they may be). They seem to see Hell as being the place where rebels are sent, not alone, but with the sum total of the lives they know, as-is. Under this picture, they would have access to the same things there that they enjoy here. But the reality is that they won't even have those things. They don't understand who God is, the nature of His gifts, or how those good gifts can be misused in a way that separates us from their Giver.